The Night Boat

by Robert R. McCammon

  “I’ve got to think,” Jana said, pacing the room. “Now they can’t have stored enough diesel fuel for a long voyage, and they can’t be moving very quickly, not with the sea running high.”

  “If the boat is headed for the lanes, the nearest route from here is between Big Danny Cay and Jacob’s Teeth. And if I reach them in time I can force the boat across the reefs and rip its hull open,” Cheyne told her.

  “No. We can use the wireless here to reach the Coast Guard,” Jana said. “They can stop it before…”

  “Now you’re talking nonsense. Do you think they’d listen for one minute to what you’d have to say? And by then the bastard would have made it through the passage, and it would be lost to me. No! It’s mine, damn it! I’ve waited a long time to meet it, on the open seas where I’d have a fighting chance, and by all that’s holy in this world I mean to follow it!”

  “I saw those trawlers down in the harbor,” she said. “If you’re going after it in one of those you’re mad! That U-boat will make matchsticks out of…”

  “That’s enough.” Cheyne’s voice was hard. “Go away from here. Both of you go tend to your dead in Coquina village. I don’t want you around Caribville; there’s an hour until dawn light and I have much work to do.”

  He held Jana’s gaze for a few seconds, then abruptly turned back to the old woman; he knelt before her, looking into her eyes, and kissed her cheek. She ran a withered hand along the unscarred side of his face. When he stood up again she clutched at his legs, but then he went to stand beside his wife and the baby. He took the child in his arms and held it close.

  “My son,” he said softly, speaking to Moore. “He’ll be the next Chief Father, after I’m gone. He’ll rule justly and fairly, and he’ll be strong, and he’ll never know fear because fear eats the insides out of a man and leaves him weak and crying out in the middle of the night. No. Keth will be free and unafraid, and he’ll grow straight and unscarred.” He returned the baby to his mother, whispered to her, and kissed her on the cheek. When he drew back, Jana saw a solitary tear streaking his wife’s face, but her eyes remained strong and cool, full of courage. Without looking at her again, Cheyne took up the shotgun, picked up one of the oil lamps, and strode through the door.

  His wife ran out after him. The old woman struggled from her chair and stood balanced precariously, like a frail thing of straw, in the doorway. She turned her head toward Moore, her eyes swimming. “Help him,” she whispered.

  Moore stood up and made his way out the door. The rain was still falling, but not as heavily as before. The Carib woman stood watching her man disappear toward the harbor. Moore could see dozens of lanterns and flashlights moving down there, each one a spot of yellow in the rain’s veil. He wiped the drops from his eyes.

  After another moment Jana joined him; the old woman, her clothes soaked, came and put her arm around the wife’s waist, pulling at her. Widows of the sea, he thought, watching them. Widows? No, no. Not yet. They began to walk back through the mud to the chief’s house. “Why?” Moore asked the old woman as they passed him.

  There was a hard certainty, perhaps even a wisdom on her face, that rooted him to the spot. “His destiny,” she answered, and then she and Cheyne’s wife were gone.

  Destiny. Destiny. Destiny. The word drove into his brain, exploded into a thousand steel fragments there. He remembered the transom of a broken boat thrashed by the sea: Destiny’s Child. There was nothing he could have done then except be pulled along by the swift and hidden currents of his own destiny, no matter how hard he fought against it, not understanding why. He was unable to win the fight because life is like the sea, and its powers pull a man into the deep and mysterious Abyss of his own future.

  Perhaps the Night Boat’s returning to the surface had only been a matter of time; perhaps he had only speeded the inevitable. Now as he looked back on the chain of deaths and destruction, he saw them as part of the chain of events that had brought him around the world and left him here, in this place of all places, standing in a harsh tropical rain. Cheyne was right, he realized: There was nothing to prevent the things from returning for more supplies and more lives. Years ago, on another day of storm, when the earth had closed over him, something inside had given way. Part of him had died then, making him like those tortured things that crewed the boat, out of place and time, caught in the clutch of a destiny that had hidden itself until now. Only in the past few days had it given him a sharp, terrifying look at what lay ahead.

  He loved this island, these people, for good or for bad. He loved them like the family he had lost. And with God’s help or without it, he must not, could not, would not lose another to the dark, sudden upheaval of his fate.

  “I’m going to help him,” he heard himself say.

  Jana clutched at his arm as he started to push past her. She wiped the rain out of her eyes and shook her head. “He’s out of his mind, David! If he finds the U-boat they’ll cut his trawler in two! He won’t come back, and he knows he won’t!”

  A white-hot flame had begun to burn in his muscles. We are born alone and we must face death alone. Who said that? A philosophy instructor, ages ago, in a college classroom of another world. Everyone must die, Cheyne had said, whether in pain or at peace. He knew there was a high chance of losing his life, but he accepted it. He would take that chance, clench it in his fist, dare the dark gods, because he had seen the end of his voyage, a brief vision that had filled his head and then vanished. He had seen the knife-blade bow of the Night Boat waiting.

  He pulled free of Jana and began to walk through the mud down the winding road to the harbor, where he could still see the flashlights moving.

  Cheyne’s weather-beaten fishing trawler rubbed up against a tire-browed wharf. It was the largest of the Carib fleet, perhaps a shade more than fifty feet from stem to stern, with a wide, low-slung hull. Most of the hull paint had been flayed off and there were some patches, but they were all well above the marked discoloration of the waterline. A broad cabin, painted maroon, with several metal-rimmed portholes stood just aft of amidships. Naked masts, their sails tightly furled, pointed at the sky as the rain dripped off the rigging. At the stern there were booms and hoists, a pile of nets, and a few metal drums strewn about. It seemed a stocky, seaworthy boat, with her spoon bow and pulpit giving her a clean, sharp line.

  As Moore approached he could see the faded image of a name that had once been painted in red on the transom board: Pride. The sea swelled underneath it, lifting the boat up and nuzzling the tires; timbers creaked and groaned and there was a dull thud as water broke under the bow.

  Several bare-chested Caribs moved on the after deck, some of them clearing nets and cables away. Water spilled from a duct at the stern; the pumps had been started up. One of the men carried a bundle of something wrapped in clear plastic but Moore couldn’t see what it was. He waited as another man opened the cabin doorway and vanished within.

  “Where’s Cheyne?” Moore shouted to the man nearest him.

  The Carib looked up with a sullen expression, then turned his back on Moore and continued moving a heavy metal drum.

  “Hey!” Moore grasped a wharf piling and leaned over, speaking to another man further down the deck. “Hey! Get Cheyne out here!”

  But then the cabin doorway opened again; the man who had carried in the bundle came out, followed by Cheyne, who was giving him orders in a clipped, brusque tone. Cheyne saw Moore and came over to the starboard gunwale. “What are you doing here?” he asked, his gaze dangerous. “I told you to get away!”

  “I want to go with you,” Moore told him.

  Cheyne was silent for a few seconds. Then he said, “Go back home, white man. This isn’t for you.” He turned away.

  Moore gestured wildly. “Wait! Please. You won’t understand, but it’s important to me. I won’t be in the way, and I can hold my own with any of your crew; I used to be a sailor. I can handle myself.”

  “Why?” the Carib asked him.

 
“I…want to be there,” Moore said. “I want to make sure the boat doesn’t come back. Let me go.”

  “You’re crazy,” Cheyne said.

  “No. I found the bastard and caused it to come up. If it wasn’t for me there’d be no death on Coquina tonight. Don’t you see? I’ve got to be there, and I have a right to help stop that thing…maybe even more than you.”

  Cheyne grunted. “No, not more than me.”

  “How about it?” Moore persisted, disregarding the Carib’s remark.

  Cheyne examined him cautiously. He reached out and grasped Moore’s wrist, pulling him over the side before the trawler could heave again. “All right,” he said. “But stay out of my way.”

  The Pride lurched again, a wash of wild foam breaking underneath, and settled back. When it did, a figure leaped from the wharf, landing solidly on the deck. Cheyne twisted around and a few of the other men gaped.

  Jana pushed her hair back from her face; it lay sodden and stringy across her shoulders. “I’m going with you,” she said forcefully to the two men.

  Before Cheyne could speak she had stepped forward, and he was forced back. “Hear me out. What you want to do is insane, I want you to know that first of all. I’m a crazy fool for being here, but you’ll need me if you’re going to try to get the U-boat, even to slow it enough to make a difference. I know the U-boat inside and out; I know where the armor is weakest, I know where you might be able to ram it to knock out its maneuverability. I know also that a trawler matched against a U-boat, even one that old and slow, is suicide. And don’t start that bullshit about a woman being bad luck aboard a boat, because I won’t stand for it and you’d only be wasting time.”

  Cheyne stared at her, his mouth half-open. Rain streamed down the scarred side of his face. “If either one of you gets in my way you’re going over the side, do you understand? If you’re so anxious, help those men with the drums of diesel fuel. Go on!” He threw Jana a withering glance and then made his way back into the wheelhouse.

  A hatch into the hold had been thrown open; Moore helped a Carib haul one of the drums across the deck and down into the hold while Jana cast heavy cables out of the way. It was a nightmare, he thought as he worked, rolling three more drums across the deck; what if they were wrong, and the U-boat wasn’t headed for Jamaica after all, but instead toward Trinidad and South America? No, no; he felt certain that the monstrosity who had once been a military man would, in his rage and blood-lust, take the U-boat prowling for the freighters in the shipping lanes. But what if they were too late, what if the boat had slipped through the teeth, what if there was no stopping that grisly crew of horrors?

  In about forty minutes the boat was buttoned down tight. A throaty rumble grew from belowdecks; white smoke churned briefly at the exhausts; the hatch was secured. Some of the Caribs leaped over to the wharf and began to throw off lines. There was an empty wooden crate at Moore’s feet, with the word CAUTION stenciled across it in faded lettering; he kicked it aside. The other Caribs left the wheelhouse, those at the bow came aft. As he watched, they left the trawler and stood in the rain watching the Pride leave the wharf when the stern lines were cast off. One of them raised a hand in a farewell gesture.

  “Cheyne’s leaving them!” Moore said to Jana. He made his way to the wheelhouse.

  Inside was a roomy cabin with dark-varnished plank bulkheads and a chart table; there was a lighted oil lamp set in a gimbaled fixture at the rear of the wheelhouse. Overhead were thick, exposed wooden beams; Cheyne’s head almost touched them. The Carib stood over a polished eight-spoked wheel, before a dimly lit instrumentation panel. A radio receiver sat on a shelf at shoulder level. Moore said, loudly over the noise of the twin diesels, “What about the others?”

  Cheyne did not take his eyes off the sea, which he watched through a wooden-framed windshield. He moved the wheel a few points to port and foam specked the glass. “They are staying behind with their families. You and the woman asked to come, Moore. If you’ve changed your minds you can swim back, both of you.”

  “You’ll need those men!”

  “I don’t ask of any man more than he is willing to give,” Cheyne said. “Their places are in Caribville with their families. They helped me prepare and that’s all I required of them.”

  “You can’t do this alone,” Moore said.

  “I’m not alone.”

  Jana came into the wheelhouse and glanced quizzically at Moore.

  A flurry of rain and seawater smashed against glass; the bow rose high, dropped sharply. Jana grasped an exposed roof beam for support.

  “If you’re having second thoughts…” Cheyne said.

  “I’m not,” Moore replied. He turned to Jana. “You shouldn’t be here.”

  “I can take care of myself.”

  Cheyne snorted. “Either get off my boat now or get to the bow and watch for bommies.”

  Moore saw the sea swirling beyond the glass; the sky was turning from black to gray now, as morning fast approached. The cloud ceiling was low and moved before a rapid wind, opening up holes though which a dank yellowish light appeared. Moore went out onto the deck, into the wind’s bite, and saw a black column of smoke scrawled in the sky. It hung directly over the Coquina village, and instantly his heart rose to his throat.

  “Cheyne,” he called, motioning toward it. The Carib peered out, his powerful hands clamped about the wheel. “The village is burning,” he said, a lump of rage rising to his throat. Cheyne turned the trawler very slowly to keep the rising sea from smashing over the port side; he pulled back on his twin throttles and the diesel’s noise quieted. His gaze was cold and grim, the eyes unmoving.

  In a few minutes Moore could see well enough to make out the ruins of the fishermen’s shanties. Cheyne’s trawler moved through green-slimed bommies into the smoother harbor water. The smell of smoke was thick and acrid, and Moore was consumed with rage. As the trawler neared the commercial wharf Moore saw a group of ragged-looking islanders and shouted to them, throwing a line. Without waiting for Cheyne to cut his engines he had jumped across to the wharf, moving through the knot of men toward the shanties.

  Cheyne came out on deck, “Moore!” he roared. “There’s no time…!”

  But he had already gone, the rage burning within him, his feet sinking in wet sand. The scorched smell hung across the harbor and it sickened him. Bodies were being pulled from the ruins, and lay on the street, charred black; it was hard to tell that many of them had ever been walking, living, breathing human beings. Moore clenched his teeth, looking to see if he knew any of them but not being able to recognize the faces. Someone working with another crew of men farther along Front Street cried out, “Here’s one!” and a woman wailed.

  Moore walked forward, dazed; the faces around him were weary, filthy. Some he recognized, some he did not, but in all he saw a pain, a numbness, a horror. A woman rocked the corpse of a child while a man stood over her, eyes darting madly in all directions. The man knew he must do something but was unable to think. “Go sleep,” the woman whispered through her tears. “Sweet baby go sleep…” A wailing pierced the dim light; he saw the burned hulks of the bars, the smoke still rising. Other buildings had caught fire again now that the rain had almost stopped, and he could see bucket brigades working feverishly. The Indigo Inn stood unscathed, at the top of the hill, too far away to be touched by the fire but empty and dead nevertheless.

  He was stunned by the carnage. “Moore!” he heard Cheyne shout from the harbor. “Goddamn you…!”

  There were corpses lying in rows on Front Street covered with sheets; he caught a glimpse of Dr. Maxwell and one of the nurses from the clinic bandaging the injured. With his next step he almost tripped over a body curled before him; he made himself look down, and saw it was the old man who’d spoken reverentially of jumbies. Now his skull was crushed and his eyes were glazed, sunken.

  He shook his head, forcing his breath out between his teeth. God, no…no…no…History repeating itself, he thought; the
Nazis have come, the sea-wolves, the conquerors, and they have been cunning and merciless. Horror upon horror, death upon death. And on the seas now the Night Boat, moving toward the shipping lanes to carry out a timeless mission of destruction.

  And then Moore saw Reynard. The man’s forehead was gashed, his clothes smeared with ashes. One of his hands was badly burned, the flesh puffing up in yellow blisters. He stepped forward, making a choking noise, and grasped at Moore’s collar. “You did this…” he rasped hoarsely. “Look what you’ve brought upon us. LOOK AT IT, DAMN YOU!”

  Moore blinked, unable to move or push the man away.

  Heads turned toward them. “You brought that Hell’s boat up,” Reynard hissed. “You brought that thing from the Abyss!”

  “No,” Moore said. “I didn’t know…”

  “Open your eyes and look at the dead!” Reynard shrieked, tears streaming down his cheeks. “YOU BROUGHT IT TO THE ISLAND!”

  “It was the white man did this!” someone else, a thin, wild-eyed black shouted. “He killed my wife and babies, burned my house! He brung that boat up from the sea! He brung it up!”

  Moore felt the electricity closing in; he shook away from Reynard and the man sprawled face forward into the sand. Another came forward, the hatred palpable: “FILTHY BROTHER TO THEM THINGS!” it shrieked. “YOU KILLED HER!”

  A hand appeared, holding an extra finger of slim silver. Someone else shouted, a knot of people surrounding Moore, nowhere to go. Their breath hot on him, dried blood on the faces, the eyes gone mad with fury.

  “Spill his blood!” a woman cried out. The group of men moved closer, someone bent down, broke a beer bottle against a stone, and held out the glittering weapon. Moore backed away from it, tripped over charred timbers, and fell onto his injured shoulder. He cried out in pain, and then they were upon him, hauling him up, other hands groping for him, Reynard shouting in a broken voice. He was pulled forward, through a cloud of ashes, and he tried to fight them but there were too many.